Talk:The Coming War with Japan

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Vaticidalprophet (talk) 21:36, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

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• ... that neither of the US-based authors of the 1991 book The Coming War With Japan had ever visited Japan when they wrote it? See answers by LeBard and Friedman in the transcript here
  • ALT1:... that the 1991 book The Coming War With Japan sold more copies in Japan than in the US? "Critics dismissed its conclusion that U.S.-Japanese economic antagonism will eventually lead to a shooting war and the book sold only 40,000 copies in its first nine months. But the Japanese edition sold 60,000 copies in its first three weeks and became the talk of Tokyo.", also "So far, the book has sold about 40,000 copies in the United States, which is pretty good but not terrific for the genre. In May, 1991, "The Coming War" was published in Japan. It was an immediate sensation. The book was reviewed for the most part, favorably by all major publications. It sold 350,000 to 400,000 copies, a superb performance by Japanese standards." and "The U.S. edition was published in March and has sold 35,000 hardcover copies, St. Martin’s Press said in New York. The book’s title ensured immediate success among voracious Japanese readers, who bought all 40,000 copies of the first Japanese-language edition, prompting publisher Tokuma Shoten to run another printing of 120,000 copies."
  • ALT2:... that the 1991 book The Coming War With Japan predicted that a conflict between the US and Japan would unfold within a generation? See here. Nb. a lot of the reviews of this book used the much-juicer claim that it was predicted within 20 years, but I couldn't find this said explicitly within the book though Friedman did say that this is what they were going to predict before the book was published. EDIT: apparently the original dust-jacket of the book included the "two decades" claim? But I haven't been able to find a copy of it to confirm this directly, just it quoted in another source
  • ALT3:... that George Friedman, the author of the 1991 book The Coming War With Japan, said in 1990 that he believed that conflict between the US and Japan was likely within 20 years? See quote here, unfortunately unless something explicitly saying this in the book can be found this is going to be a bit wordy

Created by FOARP (talk). Self-nominated at 11:37, 15 March 2021 (UTC).

• New article created on date above, over 1,500 characters, appropriately sourced and with no disputes or copyvios. Happy with all the ALTs, all properly sourced, have a slight personal preference for ALT0 and ALT1 as they provide a nice juxtaposition. QPQ not applicable as under 5 DYK nominations for this user. Happy to approve these and leave it up to admins on which ALT to choose. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 17:36, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
• P.S.: I would consider adding {{Nihongo}} or {{Nihongo2}} for the Japanese text in the lead per WP:MOS-JA. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 17:37, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

married

Near the beginning, we are given the impression that the authors are two independent academics. Not until the second last paragraph do we learn that they are husband and wife. Not, of course that there is anything wrong with that: many fine books have been written by such couples. But it is relevant information, and may leave one (well me at least) with the impression that such a provocative, contraversial book was not written from pure independent motives. baska436 101.187.174.16 (talk) 09:36, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I wanted to put the fact that they were married earlier. My problem was finding any information about when they were married. Reading the transcript of their CSPAN Booknotes interview they don’t mention being married and, indeed, appear to be hiding the fact by pretending to be married to other people (eg LeBard simply says she is married to “an American citizen”, and omits to mention that the citizen she is talking about is sitting across the table from her). It appears they may have worried that the book wouldn’t be taken seriously if people knew it was written by a husband and wife team. But the article can only state what reliable source show, which is that they are married now, and were married as early as the mid-1990's. I couldn’t find any source explicitly showing that they were married when they wrote the book. I also could not say that they were married after writing the book as nothing says this either. This is a BLP situation so I don’t think we should state that they were married when they wrote the book unless a source says this. FOARP (talk) 04:40, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Tom Clancy book

Out of interest, do any RS discuss whether this book had an influence on Tom Clancy? His book Debt of Honor appears to have some similarities and was published a few years after this work. Nick-D (talk) 23:33, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Nick-D - Haven't seen anything saying so. At a guess I'd say they were just part of the same early-1990's phenomenon (US anti-Japanese sentiment/rivalry) but if you can find some sources linking them that'd be interesting. FOARP (talk) 17:32, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Coming War With Japan/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 23:38, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Development

• What did Friedman and LeBard teach? It seems relevant to know whether this is connected to the subjects they taught or not.

Done based on CSPAN transcript. FOARP (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

• "After the book's initial publication in the US in spring 1991" - per MOS:SEASON avoid naming seasons, as those are different between northern and southern hemispheres.

Done. There was a bit of confusion in some of the sources as to whether it released in April or May 1991 which is why I originally said "Spring", but now I've found what appears to be a first edition on the Internet Archive which says May 1991 I'll go with that and what it says in Publisher's Weekly (which you would expect to be authoritative on this). FOARP (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Other

• I don't think the see also link to The Coming Conflict with China is needed per MOS:NOTSEEALSO, as it is already linked within the article.

Done. FOARP (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

• Add "Friedman and LeBard's predictions did not come true" from the lead to the body, so it is explicitly stated there

Done and expanded a bit. FOARP (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

• The citations in the lead (with the exception of the title translation) don't seem to be necessary per MOS:LEADCITE.

Done. I guess I get kind of lazy when I'm writing these things and originally write them as a stub which is why the lede is often cited. FOARP (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

References

• Would it be possible to get page numbers for Okihiro and Morris?

Done, originally I was looking at the e-book which has no page numbers but I managed to find a version of both of these with numbered pages. FOARP (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Sources all look reliable, and the image licensing seems fine to me. (not a licensing expert). Placing on hold, not much to nitpick on here. Good work, FOARP. Hog Farm _Talk 01:16, 13 May 2021 (UTC)